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Coalitions ‘key to future’

: Canada in the post-election era, the new
international situation, and internal party
Organization highlighted the agenda of the
central committee of the Communist Party
when it met in Toronto over the Jan. 6-8
weekend.

“We need to consider what we can do to
get Canada into the race for peace, before
our economy becomes militarized,” said
party leader George Hewison, commenting
on Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev’s
challenge for a nuclear weapons-free world
by the end of the century.

The meeting took place as the Soviet
delegate to an international forum in Gen-
eva announced the USSR would unilater-
ally destroy its entire stockpile of chemical
weapons and open their facilities to on-the-
Spot verification by foreign observers.

It was the second unilateral action in as
many months. In his speech to the United
Nations in December, the Soviet leader
announced a unilateral reduction by the
Soviet Armed Forces of 500,000 personnel
and the withdrawal of troops from Eastern
Europe.

The moves embody the principles of
“new thinking” in foreign affairs, Hewison
remarked. “(It is) based on the renunciation
of attempts to achieve military superiority,
and the relationship to the principle of free-
dom of nations to choose their own path of
development.”

The CP leader indicated his party’s sup-
port for the approach advanced by Gorba-
chev at the UN “to turn humankind’s
collective attention” to solving the problems
of the environment, hunger, illiteracy, dis-
ease and achieving nuclear disarmament.

Hewison made his first address as party
leader to the new central committee in a
packed hall at CP headquarters in Toronto.
The 65-member voting body, plus 35 alter-
nates, elected at last May’s convention, is
the highest decision-making body of the
party between conventions.

Made up of members from each pro-
vince, plus representation from the Com-
munist Party of Quebec, the committee
meets twice a year. Its normally scheduled
fall meeting was postponed because of the
federal elections.

Analyzing the outcome of the Nov. 21
vote, the main resolution to the meeting,
which was later adopted, noted the contra-
dictions which still exist for Mulroney’s
Conservatives despite the majority they
received.

“Mulroney was compelled to campaign
on the basis of preserving the social safety

Record set straight on ‘68 report

TORONTO — The central committee
of the Communist Party of Canada stood in
an ovation to comrades who waited almost
20 years to be vindicated, along with the
report they helped author.

Attending the CC meeting Jan. 6-8 were
Bill Harasym, Bill Ross and Anthony
Bilecki. They were part of a delegation of
leading Communists to visit the Soviet

_ Ukraine in 1967 to examine the state of

Ukrainian language and culture in the
republic. Also on the Ukraine tour were
former party chairperson Tim Buck, and
Peter Krawchuk and George Solomon.
Their three-week tour resulted in a 13-
page document, known subsequently as the

“Kiev Report,” which was endorsed and

published by the committee. It reported on
Contradictory views in the USSR on
National rights, made some criticisms —
Which would be viewed as mild in today’s
debates — and, based on its findings,
Stressed the importance of emphasizing
French language rights in Canada.

Two years later, in 1969, the majority of
the central committee voted to retract the

_ Teport on the urging of the central executive

. Tories ‘can be

GEORGE HEWISON ..
isolated and beaten.’

net, a pledge that will be increasingly diffi-
cult to keep if big business has its way.

“It should be our collective estimation
that the scale of the battle has not been
tipped decisively in favour of neo-
conservatism, but rather that the Tories and
their sell-out agenda can be isolated and
beaten,” the statement declared.

Key in this defeat will be the maintenance
and growth of the coalitions which were
formed in the fight against the free trade
agreement, Hewison said in introducing the
resolution.

“Coalition politics, including major par-
ticipation of the trade unions . . helps set
the political agenda of the country in con-
fronting neo-conservatism.

“The key to the continuing growth of the
coalition movements ... is the painstaking °
process of welding the unity within and
between these movements in struggle. The
job of building and maintaining unity
between the people’s movement and labour
is a complex, but crucial task,” he added.

It was the debate on coalition politics
which dominated the meeting. The recent
letters from leading trade unionists calling
for a new relationship between the New
Democratic Party and the organized labour
movement, resulting from the NDP’s faulty
strategy during the federal elections, also
received attention.

“There should be no illusion that the
trade union movement is about to divorce
the NDP, despite this serious reappraisal of
relations,” the resolution stated. “But there
will be considerable on-going debate inside

committee. In repudiating the report, the
central executive statement accused delega-
tion members of making concessions to
“bourgeois nationalism.”

But ina resolution adopted unanimously
Jan. 8 by the 65-voting members of the
current committee, the party re-instituted
the Kiev Report among its official docu-
ments and issued an apology to delegation
members and “the progressive Ukrainian
movement which was negatively affected.”

““We were wrong in withdrawing the Kiev
report... . We were also wrong in character-
izing loyal party comrades as making con-
cessions to bourgeois nationalism,” the
resolution stated.

In adopting the statement, the central
committee admitted the party had failed to
“apply a vigorous Marxist analysis to exist-
ing socialism and was too ready to accept
analyses and conclusions which the record
now shows were wrong.”

The CP confirmed its support for existing
socialism and stressed the need for unity
among Communist parties in co-operation
with the progressive movements to preserve
peace. “We champion the right of the USSR

the statement said.

and outside the trade union movement and
the NDP about the lessons of the election,
and what must be done in the future.

“Communists are not indifferent to the
outcome of this debate, nor to the fate of the
NDP. It cannot help the working class in
Canada, at this stage of history, to have a
badly divided NDP,” the resolution added,
noting that it is equally not in the interest of
labour to abandon its agenda to the NDP.

Speakers noted that the significant trend
in both the letters from the leader of the
Canadian Auto Workers, Bob White, and
Steelworkers director Gerard Docquier,
was their renewed commitment to organ-
ized labour working within the coalitions to
achieve common aims.

“Tt is this commitment which should be
built on and developed within the labour
movement and the coalitions,” said Toronto
delegate John Cartwright.

The resolution’s call to develop left cau-
cuses and other forums for New Demo-
crats, the independent left and Commu-
nists, and offer the labour and people’s
movements “deeper, more fundamental,
even (at times) socialist perspectives to con-
sider” was addressed by a number of speak-
ers, including Maurice Rush, leader of the
CP in British Columbia.

“While we have been effective in strug-
gling for unity in the movement, in advanc-
ing reforms, we have been weak in offering
a socialist vision to workers. It is this vision
which differentiates Communists from
social democrats,” he said. “It is this vision
which makes a Communist Party viable.”

The resolution also called for an in-depth
look at the CP’s structure. “I don’t think we
can be completely satisfied that party organ-
ization lends itself to making the maximum
impact on the working class and people’s
movements. In some cases, the forms are an
impediment,” Hewison read.

‘Are our Party structures really forms
which attract the very best activists in the
working class and people’s movements, and
can guide their work and development?” he
asked.

In a separate resolution, the central
committee endorsed the establishment of a
commission to examine the party’s constitu-
tion which sets party structure and the rela-
tionship between committees.

As an initial step, Hewison said the cen-
tral executive committee of the party would
examine the format and agendas of com-
mittee meetings to ensure they become
more focused forums for leading the party’s
work.

and all socialist countries to exist free from
the threats of counter-revolution and war,”
“But this does not
require us to accept uncritically everything
said and done by this or that socialist coun-
try.”

“I’m pleased I didn’t have to die before
being rehabilitated,” Ross told the meeting
in a generous acceptance of the statement.
But the retired leader of the Manitoba party
condemned a style of work which lead to
labeling or slandering party members who
questioned events in the Soviet Union.

“This is an obstacle to the development
of free and democratic discussion through-
out our party,” he said.

This issue emerged repeatedly in the
lengthy debate which accompanied the
resolution, which itself noted the need to
“organize discussion on important issues
free from name calling.”

In the main resolution, adopted by the
central committee at the close of the week-
end’s session, it was agreed to conduct a
party-wide debate on the legacy of Stalinism
in the Canadian party and in the interna-
tional movement.

= “TORONTO — This panied
turning point in our eve said |
- Communist Party leader

George

Hewison in his closing remarks to the
Jan. 6-8 meeting of the central com-
mittee.

Participants and observers would
have difficulty refuting the statement.

_ The change in the top leadership, and _

the new openness seen at the May,
1988 convention took a substantial
step forward at what was the first
meeting of the new committee.

In reaffirming his committment to
collective leadership, Hewison added:
“Things are out in the open now. I
personally find this a relief. Now the
burden of responsibility is more
evenly shared.”

The 65-member committee had
just received a sobering financial and
organizational briefing showing that
the central office had been operating
at an “unacceptable” deficit over the
past three years. “Unfortunately the
facts of the situation have only
become known to us recently,” said
acting organizer John Maclennan,
introducing a detailed report on party
resources. “This is a major financial

problem that must be tackled.”

A Canada-wide finance committee

has been established and steps have
~ been already been taken to cut staff —
and reduce operating costs. The —
committee will consult with the pro-
= vane ties at ee ee
in 2 d plan to eliminate the |
~ deficit to the next committee meeting.

: There was no pessimism, mowers,

sseerasey obs , ght

and women’s issues ‘director. Due to
_ budgetary considerations, the wom-—
"en's director now becomes @ volun
“ esc position. —

_A comprehensive airing was given

to the process | behind nominations, —
‘tions and the method of carrying out

‘assignments.
_ The meeting seca Lorne Robson ©
to the central executive commit- |

~ tee as full-time central party organizer.
~ Robson, 57, has a 27-year history in —
the Carpenters’ Union in B.C. Before —

‘coming to Toronto he was Manitoba
leader of the CP, a post he held for.”
~ two years.

Tribune journalist and women’s —
rights activist Kerry McCuaig, 37, was
named to the central executive post
responsible for the party’s work in the
women’s movement.

Also elected to the executive com-
mittee was the Metro Toronto party
leader, Mike Phillips, formerly labour
reporter for the Canadian Tribune.

Pacific Tribune, January 23, 1989 « 7

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